


Three Weeks in Almaty, Three Weeks in St. Petersburg

by breathtaken



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Includes Fanart, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Yuri is 17, Yuri!!! on Ice Shit Bang 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 06:57:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11962098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathtaken/pseuds/breathtaken
Summary: Here's how it goes: three weeks for Yuri in Almaty, four days between, then three for JJ in St. Petersburg. Nobody's asking Yuri to parcel up his heart, but his time's another matter, and Otabek knows they're all lucky to even get this.Lucky. Lucky is his lips on Yuri's neck in the shower, the grin that's coming more and more readily, the way he still lashes out when cornered, but never to truly wound. Lucky is the unscheduled evening hours, free to learn each other's bodies; it’s folding Yuri into his life and smoothing out the wrinkles.Lucky is the hour every night spent alone reading, or trying, and the muffled sound of English through the closed bedroom door.Fic bybreathtaken, art byshortprints.





	Three Weeks in Almaty, Three Weeks in St. Petersburg

****Yuri is on his back on Otabek’s bed, in Otabek’s apartment in Almaty, the last evening light blushing his bare skin pinkish-gold. His expression is as soft as it is in sleep, and lying starfished with streaks of both their come glistening across his chest and stomach, Otabek doesn't think he's ever been more beautiful.

He lowers himself over Yuri's body and kisses him breathless.

When he eventually pulls back both Yuri's gaze and his smile have sharpened, and his hand wraps around the back of Otabek’s neck, stroking his hairline.

“Shall we send him a picture?”

Yuri’s thumb grazes the nape of his neck, and a shudder runs down Otabek’s spine.

“No,” he replies, trying not to let it show on his face. “Let’s not.”

 

* * *

  

Here's how it goes: three weeks for Yuri in Almaty, four days between, then three for JJ in St. Petersburg. Nobody's asking Yuri to parcel up his heart, but his time's another matter, and Otabek knows they're all lucky to even get this.

Lucky. Lucky is his lips on Yuri's neck in the shower, the grin that's coming more and more readily, the way he still lashes out when cornered, but never to truly wound. Lucky is the unscheduled evening hours, free to learn each other's bodies; it’s folding Yuri into his life and smoothing out the wrinkles.

Lucky is the hour every night spent alone reading, or trying, and the muffled sound of English through the closed bedroom door.

Here's how it goes: skating comes first, for all three of them. It was Otabek’s first condition – for all their sakes – and though it's a struggle every morning not just to stay in bed, press his nose into Yuri's neck and breathe him in until the world stops turning, he still knows better.

 

* * *

 

Even though Yuri's the one with two partners, Otabek often feels like he's the one who’s really in the middle. He's done most of the work: the boundaries, the negotiations, the managing of the fraught three-way Skype calls that were where this really began, after Yuri fucked JJ in America and then Otabek in Japan, JJ punched Otabek at the GPF and Yuri punched _him_ in return, and then nobody fucked at all.

Without him, they wouldn't be here now; and he tries to feel neither triumphant or resentful. It’s a delicate course they’ve steered so far, and he was simply the best-equipped to take the helm.

His relationship with JJ, so abruptly dropped when he left Montréal two years ago, is being picked up thread by cautious thread. While they aren’t Skyping right now – they both want every moment they can have with Yuri alone – they message throughout the day, Otabek sending JJ all the random snapshots of his life he’d normally send to Yuri: the mist-shrouded mountains rising up behind the city; a strange cat winding around his ankles; the evening’s last rays of light catching on the tiles of the mosque. But this time the cat is winding around Yuri’s ankles and his neck and shoulder are at the edge of the frame as if JJ were there with them, seeing what they see.

 _Even though you’re not with us,_ Otabek thinks, _a part of you is always here._

He doesn’t know how he feels about that.

He knows JJ’s hurting. He knows in a month’s time, he will be. He’s had a taste of it already: on that second night at Worlds when JJ and Yuri were together and he walked down to Boston Harbour and looked out over the water, buffeted by the wind, unable not to think of what he’d given up.

He looks up as the bedroom door opens, his breath catching in his throat.

“Hey.”

Yuri’s eyes are glassy, only meeting Otabek’s for a moment.

“How is he?” Otabek asks, as he has every night for the past few nights.

“Sad. It’s hard for him that I’m here.”

Yuri shucks his clothes and climbs into bed, pressing up chilly against Otabek’s side; Otabek puts his book down and turns out the light before asking, “And how are you?”

“I’m... I miss him.” Otabek can tell that admitting it, even in the darkness, is like pulling teeth. “But I’m so happy at the same time.” He can almost hear Yuri roll his eyes. “Stupid feelings.”

Otabek huffs a laugh, shuffling down in bed and kissing Yuri in reply, fingers tangling in his hair, clutching at him as if he could climb inside Yuri’s skin and stay there forever, never letting him go.

During his break the next morning, he films Yuri messing about with some spins and sends it to JJ.

   

> **Otabek:** _I love the free arm in that front-grab spin_
> 
> **Otabek:** _He said you’re not happy, can I do anything?_

 

In the centre of the ice, Yuri leaps into the air, under-rotating his new quad lutz and two-footing the landing with a growl of frustration. _JJ can help him with that,_ Otabek thinks, with that same slight unease, like a ripple on the water.

The reply comes while they’re making dinner.

 

> **JJ** ** _:_ ** _Thanks dude. The pictures help_
> 
> **Otabek:** _No problem dude_

 

He needs to start working on his own programmes, but he doesn’t know what they’re going to be yet. His head’s so full of Yuri and JJ and the whole situation that there’s no room for anything else, however important.

There’s still just over two weeks before Yuri leaves, and he promises himself, _that’s when I’ll decide._

 

* * *

 

On Sunday Otabek takes Yuri up into the mountains, following the well-worn trail from Medeu to Kok Zhailau and Kumbel Peak. It’s his first time hiking here with someone new; and though he knew Yuri’s a city kid through and through, he hadn’t realised how it would feel to lead him along the same path Otabek’s walked all his life, and watch his expression come alight with naked joy as a pack of wild horses thunders through the meadow before them.

It’s a few hours before they leave the trees behind for the base of the summit, and they break for a drink there, the whole of Almaty spread out at their feet, through the hazy air.

Otabek’s breath catches in his throat: he doesn’t know if Yuri knows just how naked he suddenly feels with him standing here beside him, but Yuri has one hand pressed against his own collarbone as he looks at the jagged mountain ridges rising out of the mist to the west, his mouth a little open, utterly silent for the first time today.

“This is where I come from.”

It’s obvious, but it needs to be said.

“It’s beautiful,” Yuri murmurs, and reaches for his hand.

 

* * *

 

Otabek’s fairly sure he’s not jealous. It doesn’t upset him to know that Yuri likes-maybe-loves someone who’s not him; he’s never understood why a person can feel platonic or familial love for so others but the moment that love becomes romantic or sexual, it’s suddenly supposed to be exclusive.

But he’d be lying if he claimed there was no unease at all in his chest, like he’s his own watchdog, guarding that dangerous hollow where jealousy’s always threatening to take root.

This is so new still, and so fragile, from all angles: him and Yuri; JJ and Yuri; all three of them, and never enough time.

The first night at Worlds it was Otabek who suggested they all go back to Yuri’s room, when it quickly became apparent that that night at least, Yuri couldn’t be expected to choose; it was him who held Yuri in his arms while JJ took him apart.

(He didn’t let Yuri touch him then. Some things he wants to keep for himself.)

He knows JJ thinks he’s here on sufferance – he’s said as much, more than once – and it is a logical conclusion to draw. It’s Otabek and Yuri who have been best friends for eighteen months, JJ who Yuri didn’t even _like_ – but Otabek was there, and he doesn’t understand how JJ could see the way Yuri looked at him that night, eyes like a brand, and still not know.

Not that he wants to think about it too closely.

The days are racing by: they train, on the ice, in the studio and the gym; they cook and eat; they fuck, more than Otabek would have expected. Yuri’s insatiable, and Otabek doesn’t know if it’s because their time is limited, or if he’ll always barely be able to keep up.

He thinks he did the right thing, or at least, the least worst thing; but once they’ve come, mouths joined and joined hands around both their cocks, he can’t stop seeing JJ and Yuri together in his mind’s eye. How JJ called him baby and darling and a litany of sugar-sweet words that made Yuri flushed and angry and even more turned-on; how he shamelessly manhandled him, pulled his hair and called him gorgeous, a hundred little things that would make Otabek feel so stupid if he tried them, all he felt able to do lie along Yuri’s side, take one of his hands in his, and just watch his face.

It’s not that Otabek doesn’t like sex – there are few things he loves more these days than Yuri’s expression as he comes. But he can’t do for Yuri what JJ does for him.

But JJ isn’t here.

Here, the bedroom door has opened, and Yuri has let himself inside.

 

* * *

 

His boyfriend is a hothouse flower, Otabek decides, high-maintenance and soaking up the sun; Almaty rarely breaks twenty degrees Celsius in May, and the way Yuri bitches about it, anyone would think he wasn’t from a city that’s even colder.

For Otabek, it’s more than enough: though it’s still hoodie weather he can’t imagine ever feeling cold again with the warmth of Yuri’s hand in his, the warmth of his voice in Otabek’s ear, his moments of sudden excitement like clouds parting for sunlight. Most people talk too much, but when it’s Yuri he finds he doesn’t mind.

It feels simultaneously like Yuri’s a permanent fixture and like the weeks are already slipping through his grasp. He’s keenly aware that time is running out, and that the time they have is taking its toll: Yuri’s on the phone to Yakov at least once a day, and Otabek thinks he’s learned the difference between the yelling that’s their regular communication and the yelling that means there’s a problem.

And while he does try and make himself busy elsewhere when Yuri’s voice starts to raise, it’s pretty hard not to notice that Yakov’s clearly pissed about Yuri’s complete lack of programme ideas for next season – and the vigour with which Yuri throws himself into his quad lutz afterwards and the wordless noises of frustration when he inevitably under-rotates tell Otabek that Yuri, too, does care.

He dares to raise the subject while they’re walking home, mentally debating three different conversational openings before remembering that actually Yuri’s most at home with straightforwardness: “Is Yakov angry because you don’t have a theme yet?”

Yuri rolls his eyes and kicks a discarded can along the kerb, which Otabek decides means he knows Yakov’s right. “He keeps threatening to come up with some bullshit. I’m a senior, I’m gonna choose my own theme.”

“Do you have an idea?”

“Fuck, I dunno. My head’s just – full.”

 _You and me both,_ Otabek thinks.

What he says is, “I’d be okay with it, if you wanted to skate this. Us.”

Yuri looks immediately suspicious. “Yeah? The fuck would I call it, then?”

_Love._

Otabek shrugs, giving Yuri a smile he doesn’t quite feel. “Discovery.”

 

* * *

  

> **Otabek:** _Just so you know, whatever you do with your programmes next season is cool_
> 
> **JJ:** _Thanks man_
> 
> **JJ:** _It’s gonna be about Yuri tbh even if I pretend it’s not_
> 
> **JJ:** _I can’t think about anything else_
> 
> **Otabek:** _Yeah_
> 
> **Otabek:** _I think we all feel the same_

 

* * *

 

There’s less than a week to go, and he’s feeling reckless: that’s the only thing that can explain why when he’s got Yuri in his lap one afternoon after training, Otabek kisses a path from his lips to his ear and says like it’s spontaneous: “Imagine if JJ was watching you now.”

It takes Yuri a moment to catch on; but while he’s both visual and literal he’s also a performer, and Otabek’s years in the States and Canada have given him a decent enough North American accent that it doesn’t take much before Yuri’s sold.

When he’s speaking with JJ’s voice, Otabek can say the words that Yuri wouldn’t ever admit he loves to hear, and they sound right. He can throw Yuri around like it’s nothing, serve up just the right amount of pain along with the pleasure, without any of it being ridiculous. He can burn as brightly as Yuri does – as Yuri and JJ do together – make him glaze over with pleasure in a way that Otabek remembers from that night at Worlds all too well.

And ironically, this playacting is the most honest they’ve ever been: the spectre of JJ has been with them ever since Yuri arrived in Almaty, and only now are they letting it out into the light.

Acting on impulse for once in his life, Otabek reaches for his phone.

“Let’s send him a picture.”

When he sees Yuri’s expression, Otabek thinks for a moment he might refuse; but all he says is, “The hell’s got into you? You always said no before.”

“I know.” Like water on hot stone, his borrowed confidence evaporates; but lying naked beside Yuri with his fresh come coating his fingers, Otabek knows he has no choice but to find the words, however imperfect. “It probably sounds weird, but I realised... he’s part of this too. Even if I don’t want to have sex with him myself, we still – share this.”

Yuri’s eyes widen, and Otabek only has a moment to think _fuck, I’ve fucked it-_ before he’s being kissed.

The picture Otabek takes is of Yuri’s head and shoulders as he lies back on the bed, his hair fanned out around him on the pillow. His eyes are heavy-lidded, face flushed, and he’s licking his own come from Otabek’s fingers where they’re pressed against his open mouth.

It’s not his Yuri in the picture, but Otabek thinks he’s coming to understand the pleasure inherent in the pain.

He’s okay with it until an hour later, when Yuri takes his tablet into the living room and leaves Otabek alone.

Normally he puts his headphones on, but tonight the idea’s abhorrent, Yuri’s laughter is filtering through the closed door and Otabek’s mind is a litany of _fuck why did you do that why –_

He’s not JJ. He’s only himself, and he may pretend he knows what he’s doing but really he has no more idea than the others.

He ends up getting out of bed and doing a combination of bodyweight exercises and yoga poses until his body stops giving him space to think.

When Yuri finally comes to bed he’s smiling strangely, almost shyly, and Otabek decides he doesn’t know what to make of it.

“How is he?” he asks, like he always does, like he always will.

“Good. He's excited about coming to Russia.” Yuri never _sits_ anywhere – he _flops_ , Otabek observes. “I'm – so am I.”

“I know,” Otabek says, “it's okay.”

Even though he isn't sure it _is_.

The way Yuri looks at him then makes Otabek feel utterly transparent.

“But I’ll miss you too.”

And for the first time, Otabek sees: Yuri feels guilty. Even if he can’t express it, or doesn’t fully understand it himself, how long has he been looking at JJ and at Otabek and seeing them both hurting, for him?

If Otabek were better at this, he’d tell Yuri it’s not his fault, in a way that could make him believe it. He’d tell him that they’re all just a little raw at the edges, exposed, and just needed to get used to another’s touch – and make himself believe it too.

What he says instead is, “I’m really glad you came, you know that?”

“Of course, moron.” Yuri leans over and shoves at Otabek’s shoulder, smiling again, and lets himself be dragged into a kiss that becomes another, and another, until words are entirely forgotten.

 

* * *

 

The rest of that week they skate together, work out together, cook and kiss in the kitchen and kick each other’s asses at _Street Fighter IV_ together; and five days later, Yuri is gone.

 

* * *

 

Otabek knows how to be alone. He’s spent half his childhood in foreign countries; he’s nothing if not self-sufficient. He wakes up on time, trains, cooks and eats, plays _Fallout 4_ , talks to Yuri on Skype, goes to bed. Tries not to feel hollow.

It’s been less than forty-eight hours. In two days’ time JJ will arrive in St. Petersburg, in Yuri’s apartment where Otabek has never been; his time, his space, his bed.

The closer it gets, the worse it seems. Otabek knows intellectually it’s fear of the unknown as much as anything, but that knowledge doesn’t make him any less preoccupied.

He and Yuri have fallen back into their pre-Almaty routine – photos and one-line messages throughout the day, an hour of Skype every evening – without a hitch, and as always, it’s Yuri who does most of the talking.

When midnight has come and gone and sleep is still elusive, pointless hypotheticals rattling around in his mind, Otabek finally succumbs to temptation and gets his phone out.

  

> **Otabek:** _Do you ever think about walking away from this?_

 

He doesn’t regret it immediately, wonders if he should.

A few minutes pass before he gets a reply, and even then it takes thirty seconds of psyching himself up before he can pick up the phone.

  

> **JJ:** _Don't you dare say that to him unless you mean it_
> 
> **Otabek:** _I know. That's why I'm saying it to you_
> 
> **JJ:** _No I don't_
> 
> **JJ:** _But sometimes I wish you would_

 

For a few moments, all Otabek can do is stare at the screen, its harsh light, and the harsh words written there.

He could say that he _would,_ if he could be certain their friendship would survive it; he’s always been a master of self-preservation.

But he doesn’t think that’s true any more.

Friendship wouldn’t be enough – and he knows because what he has _now_ isn’t even enough, and hasn’t been for months.

Now, he has to be in Almaty; but once he no longer has to be in Almaty he’ll settle for nothing less than Yuri permanently by his side, in whatever capacity he chooses.

 

> **JJ:** _I’m not gonna apologise_
> 
> **JJ:** _I mean I was saving myself for marriage this time last year and I just_
> 
> **JJ:** _I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing_

 

 _You and me both, bro,_ Otabek thinks.

 

> **JJ:** _What I mean is, it would be easier_
> 
> **Otabek:** _Yeah. It would_
> 
> **Otabek:** _But we’ll figure this out_
> 
> **JJ:** _Yep. All of us_
> 
> **JJ:** _We've always been as stubborn as hell, why would we stop now_

 

Despite everything, it makes Otabek smile; and when he turns his phone off and closes his eyes, he’s finally able to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Two mornings later he wakes up to five Snapchats from JJ, showing his progression to somewhere over the Atlantic, where he must have finally passed out; when Otabek gets out of the shower it’s to three new messages from Yuri, all some variation on the theme of _why the fuck is it so early._

He sends JJ a message that reads _travel safe, bro_ and Yuri a picture of his apparently-gross bulletproof coffee with the morning sun behind it and the comment _looks pretty good to me_ – both mild, inoffensive messages that say nothing of how he feels.

Not that he knows how he feels.

He gets a few more pictures from Yuri as the morning progresses: one of the inside of the train as Otabek’s arriving at the rink for practice, with a promise that Yuri’s going to get his motorcycle license this year; and when he’s on break, one of Yuri and JJ on the train together, heads touching, JJ’s arm draped possessively over Yuri’s shoulders, both their expressions wide, tired smiles.

It doesn’t _hurt,_ exactly; Otabek’s still happier that Yuri’s happy, and to be let into their confidence is certainly better than being shut out.

He still doesn’t know what to skate.

His head’s full of Yuri but he isn’t like the others; he doesn’t know if he can bear to skate _this_ and have everyone see. Doesn’t know what he would call it, what he would say.

It might be easier to let Kseniya do whatever she wants with him. It would certainly be safer.

_If you wanted to play it safe, why did you start this?_

 

* * *

When Yuri calls him that evening, instead of being splayed across his bed like usual he’s sitting in one corner of it with his knees drawn up, wearing what Otabek immediately recognises as a Montréal Canadiens hoodie.

 _Red suits him,_ he thinks with an unexpected pang.

“Hey,” he says, “JJ’s here,” panning his tablet to show JJ lying across the lower half of Yuri’s bed, headphones on. He waves when Yuri nudges him with his foot, and says, “Hey, Otabek!” slightly too loudly.

“Hey, I’m glad you arrived safely,” Otabek says in English, but Yuri is already turning the camera away, JJ falling back out of frame.

“He can’t hear you. How was practice?”

Otabek tells him. He gives all the right answers and asks all the right questions and nods in all the right places, and when his allotted hour is over he hangs up and wonders why they’re even bothering, when Yuri would probably be better served making the most of his three weeks with JJ than wasting that time on him – and then his mind stutters to a halt because he may not know much, but he does know that _this isn’t right._

_What the fuck is wrong with me?_

He tries saying it out loud, but it just makes him feel ridiculous.

“Fuck,” he says instead, putting his laptop beside him on the couch and getting to his feet.

Running is his usual sanctuary when he feels like this, but rain’s falling outside and it’ll keep him awake for hours when he’s already supposed to be going to bed.

So he’ll sleep on it. He’s been up for sixteen hours, and one moment of – frustration, he supposes, isn’t nearly enough to tell him conclusively what this is, and what it means.

He does sleep, fitfully, and wakes up the next morning feeling just the same, the weight of a cloud that’s been gathering for he doesn’t know how long.

Kseniya frowns at his appearance, though she says nothing until he falls on a triple axel right out of the gate.

“Okay. I’m cancelling your ice time today.” If she’s surprised when he doesn’t even protest, she doesn’t show it. “Go take a nap. I’ll see you back here at two.”

“Okay,” he replies, tongue thick in his mouth. If this is affecting his skating, then he needs to figure out how to deal with it. They all agreed that skating comes first.

He does go home, but it’s not to nap, only to change his shoes and grab a better jacket before heading straight back out, towards the mountains.

The air gets clearer as he climbs, as does his mind, the city falling away behind him like so much white noise. His heart's in the mountains: only here can he look at himself as though at another person, and see the truth of his situation.

Which is that he wouldn't have chosen this. Any of it.

In an ideal world, he and Yuri would have waited for each other... another few years at least, until their positions were a bit more cemented. Viktor Nikiforov is being clearly positioned as Yakov's successor in St Petersburg, whether Yuri likes it or not, and it's possible he could even be persuaded to take Otabek on too when Yuuri Katsuki retires.

He doesn't know where JJ fits into all of this. Yuri would probably have done what he did anyway and then got it out of his system. Or he wouldn't have got it out of his system; and Otabek's fairly sure it would have hurt for a while but Yuri would have been happy, and he and Yuri could still have been friends.

But speculating is futile, because for everything to work out exactly as Otabek would have liked, Yuri couldn’t have been who he is. The boy Otabek loves is impatient, big-hearted and shit at hiding it; he's not someone who waits, who would ever even think of tamping down his desires until the right moment rather than going after what he wants and making it happen for him _now,_ and hang the consequences.

And what Yuri started, Otabek was never going to stop, or veer from his chosen course. There was a solution to the problem that was the three of them where everybody got what they wanted; and only now is he truly realising why most people don't do this.

He knows he loves Yuri. It might not be the desperate, passionate way JJ loves him, but Otabek is not JJ, for which he's frequently thankful. But love is just a feeling, and it doesn't mean that it’s _right._

And he has to do what's right.

He turns and looks back down the slope at the way he's come, then up above to the clouds shrouding the mountain peaks from sight, and thinks, _I don't know what to do._

His phone pings.

 

> **JJ:** _I want to Skype you asap_
> 
> **JJ:** _Over lunch break?_
> 
> **JJ:** _Let me know_

 

As he reads, Otabek can't help the anticipation that settles like a cold lump in his chest.

It could be nothing.

But it's probably not nothing.

  

> **Otabek:** _Give me 30 minutes_

 

* * *

 

JJ, by most measures, is kind of an annoying person. He’s socially dense, his signal to noise ratio is low and he frequently doesn't know when to quit, but Otabek's known him a while and he knows that the flip side is that JJ’s honest, sincere and well-meaning, even though he’s twenty years old and he still thinks a good conversational opener is, “What's wrong with you?”

JJ’s lying on his front, diagonally across Yuri’s bed, his face mostly smushed into one of Yuri’s pillows. Otabek decides he looks terrible.

“Hello. You look terrible,” Otabek replies, partly because unlike some people he doesn’t feel inclined to spill his guts in the first ten seconds, and partly because sometimes he just likes to be annoying.

“Alright, alright.” JJ waves a hand, nearly knocking over a glass of water that's precariously balanced on Yuri's windowsill. “My body thinks it’s two in the morning. Now spill it.”

Instead of 'spilling it’, Otabek finds himself raising an eyebrow and firing back: “Why JJ, I didn’t know you cared.”

There’s something about JJ that’s always made him want to be a bit of an asshole.

Not that JJ has ever been bothered, and this time’s no different: he lets out a bark of amusement. “Very funny,” he says, unnecessarily. “But seriously. You tell me you’re thinking about walking away, then I’ve been here one day and Yuri already says you’re being weird. What’s going on? Talk to me.”

Otabek runs a hand through his hair. “I wasn’t thinking about walking away,” he says slowly, because it’s at least somewhere to start, “not about actually _doing_ it. Just – what would happen _if_ I did it, I guess.”

“But you were still thinking about it.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I was wondering if it would be easier.” The words feel hollow, but that’s probably because _he_ feels hollow, has done ever since Yuri left. “One long-distance relationship is hard enough, but two? It’s ridiculous. I was probably wrong to suggest this. And selfish.”

He makes himself look JJ in the eye when he says it; JJ’s eyes are wide and he just nods, doesn’t say anything for once, for which Otabek is grateful.

“But... the damage is done, I suppose. I don’t think we could step back and just be friends now.”

He can't imagine Yuri would ever forgive him for it.

JJ's still looking at him with the focus he normally reserves for skating, almost painful in its scrutiny. “Is that what you want?”

“To stop? No. But – that doesn't mean this is right.”

JJ sighs, which quickly turns into a yawn. “'Scuse me. Look, dude. This is dumb, okay? What's _right_ is what makes us all happy.”

“But we're _not_ happy. Are we!” He normally knows better than to let JJ frustrate him, but now the words are coming out and he's not sure he can stop them. “You weren't happy when he was here. So he wasn't happy. Not fully. And now –”

He bites the words back, but JJ’s eyes are narrowing, and of course it’s obvious, painfully so. “And now you’re not.”

JJ sounds... entirely unsurprised, and Otabek supposes that if anyone was going to understand, it would be him.

“And nor is Yuri.”

For a moment, Otabek just stares.

“What?”

JJ gives him his best unimpressed look. “Dude. Come on. He can tell when you’re not being real with him. You think that’s not gonna upset him?”

“Fuck.”

Otabek imagines Yuri looking now like he did in Almaty, when he slunk back into Otabek’s bedroom like a dog that had been kicked. He imagines it being because of _him –_

Yuri’s _supposed_ to be happy. That’s the whole _point_ of this.

Otabek pushes his hair out of his eyes, shifts in his chair, takes a breath, tries again. “Like I said. This isn’t making us happy, is it?”

“If I compare it to the alternative? Yeah, it damn well is.” JJ pushes himself up onto his elbows, his eyes glinting with new fierceness. “Look, I’m pretty crazy about him, I’m sure you’ve noticed. And I know you didn’t do this for me. But I’m still grateful.” He smiles, but it doesn’t look genuine. “To be honest, I never thought I’d have a chance.”

“What?”

It makes no sense. Yuri realised he didn’t have to hate JJ pretty much as soon as he beat him to that first gold; and Otabek’s _seen_ JJ and Yuri together, the sparks that fly between them, that he knows he can’t hold a candle to.

But JJ snorts. “Do you remember the part where you two are BFFs? And by comparison, he couldn’t even _look_ at me after the first time.” He grimaces, though Otabek thinks he’s trying not to. “When he told me you guys had slept together, I thought well, that’s it.” He shrugs, something like his familiar grin returning. “But I guess he must need me for sex!”

JJ is frequently thoughtless, but never cruel; Otabek knows it’s a joke, an offhand comment made in an attempt to lighten the mood. But he hears so clearly the implication _because you’re not giving it to him_ that he flinches before he can stop himself.

There’s a moment of horrible silence, and when he forces himself to look back at the screen, JJ’s eyes are wide, his mouth hanging slightly open. “You seriously think that,” he says, as if he’s just realising it. “You know I was joking. Rght?”

“I know.” The last thing he wants is to talk about this – but it’s out there now, and he can tell JJ isn’t going to let this go. Perhaps it’s for the best; lancing the wound, so to speak. “But I’m – I’m not like you are, with him.”

“So? You’re _you._ That’s who he wants. You haven’t talked to him about this either, have you?”

“I don’t want to upset him,” Otabek replies, which sounds pretty weak when he has to say it out loud.

“You being fake with him upset him. And don’t get all dramatic either, just be honest. Tell him what’s bothering you and remind him that you love him.” JJ pushes himself up, with effort, grabs the glass of water from the windowsill and takes a deep drink. “I know you think you have to manage us both because we’re idiots with too many feelings and not enough patience to figure out how to do this properly, and yeah, if you hadn’t then this probably would have blown up in our faces. But it doesn’t mean you can’t have feelings of your own, okay? You can tell yourself whatever you like, but in the end it comes down to trust. How can you trust each other, if he doesn’t know you?”

Otabek knows looking away is a tell, but he can’t quite bear to keep looking at JJ’s earnest expression; he doesn’t want to be _seen_ right now, in his own inadequacy, and it’s only the knowledge that he and JJ are in this together almost as much as he and Yuri are that keeps him in his chair. As a compromise, he lets himself rub his hands over his face and through his hair for a moment to catch his breath.

“I’ve been stupid,” is what he says in the end. It’s not inaccurate.

“Well, yeah, but you’re not the only one. Bella was always the same.” Otabek blinks in surprise – Isabella is the only thing JJ doesn’t talk about, and now he’s looking for it he can see the strain around his mouth even on the slightly shitty connection. “It was her upbringing. Only child, her parents are quiet and hard-working and nobody ever said how they felt.”

Otabek nods, thinking of his own frequently absent father and permanently-busy mother, and how it doesn’t sound so different from his own.

“Whereas the three of us, my dad always said we only stopped yelling cause we had to breathe. Anyway. My point is, she learned to talk about things, and I learned to shut up for long enough to let her do it. And this is your learning curve. You can read about relationships all you want, but you don’t really know until you have one.”

Otabek’s coming to realise that he’s seriously underestimated JJ.

He’s fallen into the trap of thinking he’s the only one of the three of them who knows what he’s doing because he’s reading _More Than Two_ 1 and emailing round relationship checklists, when for all JJ’s periodic bouts of jealousy and his inclination to throw money at a problem rather than actually thinking it through, what Otabek had been interpreting as him burdening Yuri with his feelings was actually... not burdening, but sharing.

It makes him wonder what else he’s misinterpreted so badly.

“Does Yuri talk to you a lot about how he feels?”

JJ’s eyes narrow, and Otabek realises he’s been sussed out. “Yeah, he does. I try to lead by example and talk to him about how I’m feeling first.”

“Oh. Okay.”

When Yuri was in Almaty, Otabek used to ask, more often than not, after Yuri had spoken to JJ on Skype. _How are you, how is he._ But he isn’t sure he’s ever told Yuri how he was feeling, just because.

“You, though. Jealous of _me._ ” JJ's grinning again, and Otabek wonders sourly for a moment what's so fucking funny. “And I spent about a week being driven crazy knowing you'd be the first one to get your dick in his ass.”

What the hell do you say to that?

Even now the memories are burned on Otabek's brain – the arch of Yuri's spine, the whines pushed out of him with every thrust – but they’re _his_ memories alone _,_ and he isn’t willing to give away any part of them.

Fortunately, before he can come up with anything approaching a response, JJ lets out a massive yawn that quickly turns into a groan. “ _Ohh,_ wow. Right. I’ve gotta go for a run. Or at least a walk or something. Otherwise I’m gonna fall asleep again and then Yuri’s gonna kick my ass when he gets back.”

“Yeah. I should get back too,” Otabek agrees, because he doesn’t really want to think about Yuri coming home to JJ. “Good talk, bro.”

“Same to you. Just promise me you’ll talk to Yuri?”

“Yeah. I’ll talk to him.”

“Good man. Laters.”

Since Yuri left, the silence of Otabek’s apartment has started to intrude, in a way it never had before; once he closes the lid of his laptop it’s back, almost as acutely as in those first few days alone.

So he turns his back on it, working himself to the limit in the gym, all the better for not thinking; then he goes home again, showers and cooks with the radio on low, because when all else fails, he knows routine.

It's not even seven thirty and he's half way through stacking the dishwasher when he gets a message.

 

> **Yuri:** _Call me now?_
> 
> **Yuri:** _JJ said he spoke to you and now he's being all cryptic_

 

The clench of fear in Otabek's chest takes him by surprise, not quite subsiding even when he tells himself, _it's only Yuri._

 _It's only Yuri,_  he thinks again, bitterly, the person he has the greatest power to hurt.

Just for a moment he thinks of refusing, and then immediately wants to slam his head against a wall. 

 

> **Otabek:** _OK, give me 5 minutes_

 

He turns on his laptop and washes his face while it’s booting up, meeting his own eyes in the mirror – straight eyebrows, dark eyes, brown skin, strong jaw dripping water – and wonders what Yuri sees when he looks at him.

He’s not like Yuri. When they walk down the street together, women stare, men stare: Yuri’s _exquisite,_ sharp and slender and symmetrical, as tall as Otabek now and threatening to overtake him.

And it’s Otabek who Yuri chose.

He gives his face a vigorous towelling off, goes back into the living room and sits down on the couch, opening up Skype and starting the call without letting himself think any more.

“Hey.” Yuri answers almost immediately, tilting the screen of his tablet so Otabek can see his face. His hair’s in a high, messy bun and he's wearing a tight black T-shirt, and between the slight breathlessness in his voice and the redness in his cheeks, Otabek guesses he's just got back from the rink, and not even showered.

“The fuck is going on?”

For all the surface differences between JJ and Yuri, it never fails to amuse Otabek just how frequently alike they are.

But they're both shit at hiding things, and where JJ was just curious, Yuri's _worried_ – and so Otabek takes a deep breath in through his nose and pushes the words out from his core:

“I miss you.”

“Oh,” Yuri says, with – not surprise, but a certain awkwardness, which Otabek supposes he deserves. “Yeah. I miss you too. But what's that got to do with JJ?”

“Is he there?” Otabek can't help asking, instead of answering the question.

“No, I kicked him out.” Yuri turns his phone around, giving Otabek a quick and unnecessary panorama of his otherwise-empty studio, even messier than usual with JJ’s massive open suitcase covering a good part of the floor space. Potya is asleep in the middle of it, undoubtedly leaving a gift of shed fur all over JJ’s favourite clothes. “So?”

“So... this is hard for me.” Outside, about ten drivers honk their horns in quick succession and he hears someone shouting; on the screen in front of him Yuri is fiddling with a strand of hair that's come loose, then with one of his piercings. “When we started all this, I did all that reading, because I wanted to understand it. I wanted to get it right. And I thought that if we had the right rules and boundaries and I did exactly what I'd said I would and ignored everything that didn't feel quite right then then it would be enough. But it's not.”

Yuris’s expression is making Otabek's heart ache, but now that it’s all started to come out he can't imagine being able to keep it inside any more, not even for him.

“I faked it yesterday and I'm sorry. The truth is that it's not okay right now. It's – awful. Waking up without you. Coming home and you're not here. All that stuff. And – I'm jealous. That he's been to your new place first. That he's with you and I'm not. And I'm not proud of it and I know this is what it is right now, which is why I didn't want to make you feel bad about it. But JJ said I needed to talk about my feelings. So.”

Yuri looks – well. _Winded_ is perhaps a fair description.

“ _Beka,”_ he says helplessly, and then clamps his mouth shut.

“I don't know what to do,” Otabek confesses, unable to help watching the sadness on Yuri's face and think that he’s put it there. “I want this – I want _you_ – more than anything. Don't doubt that. I just wish it could be easier.”

“Who says you need to _do_ anything?” Yuri argues, though there's no heat in it. “Look, I feel – fuck awful sometimes, cause however happy I am, I'm always missing someone and they're missing me. But we were lucky to even get this. We're three of the top five men's figure skaters in the world and we can't throw that away, we _can't._ ”

This is possibly the first time Yuri has ever told Otabek about how he's feeling without being prompted.

It helps a little, but not enough.

“I know. I don't want to either. I just –” Otabek runs a hand over his face and through his hair, fighting the urge to look away. “I don't know how to do this. Not really. I told you both I did and I believed it, but –”

“Beka. I _know._ ” Yuri’s smiling now, at least, though his eyes are looking suspiciously glassy. “Is it worth it? For you?”

“ _Yes._ ” Otabek doesn't hesitate; he remembers JJ saying, _what's right is what makes us happy._ “Yes, it is.”

“It's worth it for me. Every day.” Yuri's the only person Otabek's ever known who can manage to glare _affectionately._ “It's shitty when it hurts, but fuck that. It's what I want.”

“Good.” Otabek forces himself to stop twisting his fingers in his lap. “Good.”

“And when you feel shitty I want you to tell me. If you try and hide it again I'll kick your ass.”

That makes him laugh properly, a little helpless with relief. “Okay. Good.”

“Oh! Did I tell you JJ learned to read Cyrillic? He said it was a surprise. But he’s fucking awful at it. The lady at the bakery told me it was cute, so I’m never going there again.”

As he settles in for one of Yuri’s frequent bitching sessions, Otabek thinks that he knows how this will go. That this is the worst of it, the first sharp pain that will settle into a dull ache, occasionally flaring up, otherwise almost forgettable.

But as he hangs up nearly an hour later, he feels lighter than he has in days to know without a shadow of a doubt that he won't always have to be the one keeping it together.

 

* * *

 

But he still doesn't have a theme.

He asked Yuri, who rolled his eyes and said, “You sound like Yakov,” which means he doesn't either.

Kseniya’s given him a deadline of the end of the week, otherwise she’s just going to start choreographing ‘Winter/Spring’ and he won’t be able to afford not to use it, but it’s been over a month since Yuri first came to Almaty and Otabek’s no closer to knowing what he wants.

He gets out his phone.  

 

> **Otabek:** _Did you pick a theme yet?_

 

He hesitates, then adds:

 

> **Otabek:** _Kseniya gave me till Monday to decide, and I don't know what to do_

 

He drops his phone on the couch and walks over to the window, yanking it wide and leaning out, looking at the mountains where they rise up to meet the horizon.

It's never been a problem before. He's always been private, but he's never been torn like this before.

He knows that Yuri documents most of his life on Twitter and Instagram, and that JJ's not much better; and he knows neither Yuri's trip to Almaty or JJ's presence in St. Petersburg will have gone unremarked, however innocuous their posts. Which he's dealt with by mostly refusing to think about it and also not logging in since probably some time around Worlds, however much Yuri complains. It’s their prerogative, of course, but that doesn't mean he’s entirely comfortable with it, and he certainly doesn’t want to see the comments and speculations for himself.

He doesn’t _think_ he’s ashamed. That there’s three of them, rather than the usual two; that people will inevitably make assumptions. He just genuinely doesn’t think it’s any of their business. What he feels for Yuri is something he can only stand to share even as much as he does with JJ because he knows that JJ shares it. It’s certainly not for anyone else to know.

But how can he ever be a champion, if he won’t skate what’s in his heart?

His phone pings. 

 

> **JJ:** _I don’t know what to call it either dude_
> 
> **JJ:** _I thought about love but it’s more than that, it’s about me too_
> 
> **JJ:** _I’m not who I always thought I was gonna be_

 

It takes Otabek a moment to realise he’s been misunderstood; but as his thumb hovers over the keyboard, about to find the words to set JJ straight, he realises he’s not going to do that. That JJ’s not just skating Yuri – he’s skating himself.

   

> **Otabek:** _Recalibration_
> 
> **Otabek:** _You’re finding your new direction_

 

Now all he needs to do is figure out his own.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t mention it over the next few days, and neither does Yuri. The elephant-in-the-room feeling persists, but Otabek is his parents’ son and he’s as adept at ignoring uncomfortable truths as any diplomat. He makes sure he ends each call by saying “I miss you” now, and after that first night’s beat of surprise, Yuri never hesitates before saying it back.

It aches, but like he said to Yuri, it is what it is. He doesn’t know when they can see each other next – assignments aren’t out until the end of the month, and there are so many ways the chips could fall. If only one of them gets the same event as Yuri – or even two events; if neither of them do, or only each other. If Skate Canada’s in the eastern half then JJ could probably go – would Yuri travel to Moscow...?

It might not even be until the GPF. All the way till December, the three of them and maybe five days at most, if they really manage to string it out a bit. Not that Otabek thinks he has the money to string it out. It makes his head hurt just thinking about it, and achieves nothing in any case.

When he calls Yuri that night, he’s wearing a grey T-shirt with the collar cut off and the _Aladdin Sane_ lightning bolt picked out in sequins. There’s a braid running across his hairline which JJ’s working down behind his ear with expert fingers, like Otabek remembers him doing for his sister. It makes Otabek’s own fingers tingle, as if to reach through the screen and tangle in Yuri’s hair.

“Yo yo,” JJ says, not looking at Otabek as he scrapes hair across the back of Yuri’s head with his fingers, drawing it into the braid.

Yuri rolls his eyes and says in English, “He insisted on doing this now.”

“That’s fine,” Otabek says reflexively, but Yuri’s already waving a hand dismissively.

“I figured, he’s here anyway,” he replies, switching back to Russian. “We can’t all afford separate bedrooms.”

It’s a sort-of-apology, Otabek thinks, of a particularly Yuri kind: the attack lacking any real teeth, to cover his feeling bad that JJ’s perpetually present during what’s supposed to be their private time. He wonders if it matters to Yuri that he sees right through it, or if that’s even the whole point.

He doesn’t _think_ it’s actually about separate bedrooms, anyway. Almaty’s housing market is not St. Petersburg’s; government grants are not family wealth. The point is, the way Yuri never really answered the one time Otabek raised the possibility of dinner with his family is something else entirely.

None of these are roads he really wants to go down tonight.

So instead he asks, “How was the rink?’

He read the messages, of course, but he wants to hear Yuri say it.

“Fucking lutz.” Yuri’s grinning like he only does when he’s excited enough that he forgets to be cool and surly. “Fucking finally. I went deeper on the entry, and once I’d stopped falling, JJ told me to turn my foot further in on my skating leg and it really worked. I just need to do it a couple more times until I’ve got the rotations consistently, and then I’ll figure out how to land it.”

“That’s fantastic.” Otabek smiles. “Well done.”

“My peroneal tendon’s aching like fuck now though.” Wincing, he reaches down and pulls his foot into his lap, pushing the heel of his hand against his already heavily-taped calf.

“Don’t overdo it.”

“Yes, Mom.” Yuri rolls his eyes, as expected, and adds in English: “I’m going to nail this lutz before the series starts and then I’m going to beat you both. Especially this asshole.” He jabs a thumb at JJ, who leans in and kisses his cheek with a too-loud smacking sound.

“You can definitely try!” JJ replies cheerfully – then looks directly at the screen and winks.

Well. This is – new, and he wonders if Yuri has even realised he’s bringing JJ into their conversation. And while it is cutting into their one-on-one time, perhaps it’s good for the three of them to just chat for once, with no time pressure and nothing to negotiate.

Yuri pushes JJ away by the face, asking Otabek, “Shall I get rid of him? My hair’s done.”

“No, he’s fine,” Otabek replies, and means it.

Yuri looks at JJ and says, “Okay. You can stay.”

“Sweet.” JJ drapes Yuri’s remaining hair over his shoulder before slinging an arm around him and then picking up his phone; Otabek wonders for a moment if he should be disappointed.

But a moment later Yuri’s already bitching about Viktor and his latest attempts to interfere with Yuri’s coaching – a topic which always makes Otabek wonder about his own tentative future plans, just how many of the world’s top skaters would _kill_ for free advice from Viktor Nikiforov, and who exactly does Yuri think is going to be his coach after Yakov – and Otabek would never normally check his phone while someone’s talking to him, but the only people who text him are on a screen in front of him –

  

> **JJ:** _Do you two ever talk about his fantasies?_

 

  


 

Otabek drops his phone as though it’s burned him.

As the moment of utter white-out shock fades, Yuri is saying, “...stop sucking face in the middle of the rink, when they’re not asking about you or about Mr Tim Hortons here, like what the _fuck._ ”  

JJ is leaning his head on Yuri’s shoulder. He’s looking straight at Otabek, his expression decidedly smug.

 _What the fuck_ indeed.

“Hey! Asshole.” Yuri waves a hand in front of the screen. “Are you even listening?”

“Yes, I’m listening.” Out of sight of the camera, Otabek puts his phone on silent and turns it face down on the arm of the couch. “They’re curious, it’s understandable.”

“It’s none of their fucking business.”

JJ’s looking at his phone again, but the backs of his fingers are brushing gently up and down Yuri’s neck, where Otabek knows he’s sensitive; as if on cue, Yuri shivers like he’s trying to hide it.

Otabek gives himself a mental shake.

“I’m not saying you should tell them anything.” Although it’s very unlikely that Katsuki and Nikiforov haven’t already worked it out. “Just that I’m not surprised.”

“Yeah, well they _keep on_ fucking –”

Yuri stops dead as JJ, his eyes still meeting Otabek’s, presses his lips to Yuri’s neck.

Then the tablet sways violently as Yuri reaches across and shoves him.

“Cut it out, asshole! Beka doesn’t want to see that!”

Without letting himself think, Otabek replies, “Don’t let me stop you.”

Though he’d tried to make his tone as mild as he could, Yuri’s eyes mouth falls open – then he huffs a sudden breath, harsh and sibilant as JJ presses his lips to the exposed skin just below his ear, longer and firmer this time, showing a swirl of tongue as he pulls away. He’s playing to the crowd, Otabek realises, thoughts coming just a beat too slow – to _him._

“What the fuck is this,” Yuri says, though his eyes are wide and there’s no force behind his words.

It had never occurred to Otabek to ask Yuri about his fantasies. It hadn’t occurred to him that Yuri would _have_ fantasies, probably because he doesn’t think he has any himself. Sure, Yuri likes the way JJ talks to him, but it’s not a fantasy if it’s something you already do, right?

Then he remembers his bedroom, Yuri sitting naked in his lap and his own voice saying, _imagine if JJ was here._

_Oh._

He’s frozen, he thinks, hands forming fists on his thighs and lost for what comes next – but luckily he has the real JJ for that, who’s got his lips to Yuri’s ear and is stage-whispering: “Don’t play dumb, baby, you know exactly what this is.” Then he reaches up and presses his hand against Yuri’s mouth – and _holy shit,_ Yuri’s sucking JJ’s fingers into his mouth and Otabek’s dick likes this, oh yes it does. “Both hands on the tablet,” JJ tells him, and Otabek sees Yuri reach his other hand up and grasp the screen, eyes locked on Otabek’s. “Keep them there. Make sure Beka gets a good view.”

This is – _God._ Has Yuri been thinking about this? Have they _talked_ about it? He never would have thought – and he’s feeling a little inadequate but mainly more and more turned on, his dick’s been pretty much dormant since Yuri left and it’s suddenly demanding to make up for lost time, as Yuri’s tongue peeks out between JJ’s fingers and a ragged gasp escapes him, the tablet tilting down and down his torso until all Otabek can see is the hem of Yuri’s T-shirt and JJ’s hand, pressing against the hard line of his cock through his jeans.

And immediately Otabek knows that’s not what he wants.

“Keep it on your face,” he says, voice hoarse, nails digging into his own thighs to try and keep himself under control. “I want to look at _you_.”

Achingly slowly Yuri’s face comes back into view, where JJ is sliding his fingers out of his mouth and murmuring against his neck, “What did Beka just say, Yuri?” like Otabek couldn’t tell him himself.

“He said that he wants to look at my face,” Yuri replies – and the shakiness in his voice plus the equally shaky expression on his face make Otabek finally understand that this is part of it, part of the game.

“You’ll have to tell him what I’m doing then, won’t you?”

For a moment Yuri just stares, helpless; and for all that he’s really enjoying this, Otabek still feels a pang of sympathy.

“ _Yura,_ ” he says – and then stops, not sure how to continue, but perhaps from the way Yuri’s looking at him he’s done enough.

“He’s – he’s unzipping my jeans,” Yuri says haltingly, and _yes,_ imagining it’s even better than seeing for himself; and he swears to himself that one day he’s going to lay Yuri out on his bed and just watch his face as he makes him come.

He puts a hand over his own rapidly-hardening cock through his sweats, and though he grits his teeth so not to make a sound, it must have shown in his face because Yuri’s eyes suddenly fly wide.

“Are you –?”

“I don’t have a zip,” Otabek replies – it’s obtuse, but seems to be enough as Yuri gasps again, properly this time.

“He’s touching me through my boxers, are you –”

“Yes,” Otabek growls, shoving his hand down inside his sweatpants and huffing out through his nose. “How hard are you?”

“So fucking hard. I feel like I haven’t done it for _weeks._  Beka.”

“I’m here,” Otabek says, which is stupid because Yuri can fucking see he’s there, but he has no fucking idea what he’s doing here and he has to say _something._

“Oh yeah, you two just keep talking dirty,” JJ purrs against Yuri’s neck; it’s jarring for a moment because Otabek wouldn’t describe what they’re doing as dirty talk at all, it’s so much _more,_ Yuri’s looking almost panicky and it’s all unravelling much too fast –

Then JJ winks – Otabek has to force back a very inappropriate snort – and he thinks, _what would he say?_

“You’ve been thinking about this, haven’t you, treasure?” It’s like he’s another person all of a sudden; his tongue curls around the words, drawing them out, savouring. “About him showing you off to me. So come on. Tell me what he’s doing.”

“He’s – _ahh._  Hah.” Otabek fancies he can see the strain in Yuri’s shoulders beneath his T-shirt, imagines his white-knuckled grip. “He’s jacking me off.”

“How?” Otabek presses, shifting his own hips up so he can push his sweats and boxers entirely down to his thighs. “Does he do it the way you like?”

“Yeah he’s – finally figured out how a foreskin works.” Otabek has to stifle a smile. “But it’s too slow, the fucking tease.”

“Oh, really? Yuri says you’re jacking him too slow,” Otabek says in English, this time letting his smile spread when JJ pulls his head away from Yuri’s neck to look at him, raising an eyebrow. “He says you’re a tease.”

“Of course I’m a tease. That’s exactly what he wants. Isn’t it, baby?” JJ runs the backs of his fingers down Yuri’s cheek, and there’s a naked adoration in his expression that Otabek isn’t sure he should be privy to. “You want Beka to watch you while I get you off, you little exhibitionist.”

“Stop talking and do it then,” Yuri grumbles, but really, he should know by now when he’s not fooling anyone.

Otabek’s jacking himself just a little too slowly as well, though he’s always appreciated that drawing out of the moment more than Yuri does. He says in Russian again, “Exhibitionist, huh? I don’t see you performing for me. Come on then, let me hear it.”

“I’m – _ahh. Oh._ ” He’s perfect like this: eyes heavy-lidded, lips perfectly rounded, the sound he makes going straight to Otabek’s dick.

“Yeah, like that,” he says; and after that the only noises are Yuri’s breathy gasps and the occasional wet sound from JJ’s mouth as he sucks on Yuri’s piercings, Otabek’s hand keeping time with the flexing of JJ’s bicep where his hand reaches down.

Otabek knows Yuri’s close when his breathing changes, his gasps turning into whines; and when he moans jaggedly, shudders all over and JJ raises glistening fingers to Yuri’s lips for him to suck clean, eyes never leaving the screen, Otabek grits his teeth and comes silently over his bunched-up boxers in a rush of heat.

Fof a few moments, none of them move; and as the pleasure fades, Otabek’s hit with a new wave of longing so acute that it feels like a physical ache.

JJ’s nose is tucked into the crook of Yuri’s neck, and from a distance Otabek could be looking at himself.

Yuri is starting to look awkward, so Otabek makes himself say, “I enjoyed that.”

“Did you...?”

“Yeah.”

What he _wants_ to say is _fuck this, I’ll come to you._ Even if it’s only for a week or even for a long weekend; even if it means living on kashk 2, beans and frozen vegetables for a month, or calling the Ministry of Culture and Sport and begging to skate for oligarchs and bureaucrats for a paycheck.

Instead he says, “I’m gonna go to bed.”

They must still have at least half an hour on their time, but the way he feels right now, he wants to be alone.

“Speak tomorrow, okay?”

“Yeah.”

“I miss you.”

HIs throat’s thick around the words, and he thinks Yuri’s is as well when he replies, “I miss you too.”

“Sleep well,” Otabek murmurs, and disconnects.

It’s got dark outside, and he can no longer see the mountains rising up behind the city, however well he knows they’re there.

It takes him a long time to fall asleep.

 

* * *

  

On Monday, he sits Kseniya down on the smokers’ bench outside the rink, ground littered with cigarette butts at their feet, and says without preamble, “I’m in love with Yuri Plisetsky.”

The morning sun is in their eyes, and the last time he sat on this bench was with Yuri, about two weeks into his stay. Yuri was in a mood because Yakov had yelled at him particularly extensively and he still couldn’t figure out how to get the rotations on the quad lutz, and Otabek pushed his hands up under Yuri’s jacket and tickled him until he was red-faced and threatening to shave Otabek while he slept between giggles.

Now, it feels like another lifetime.

Kseniya squints into the sun, looking sideways at him for a long moment before replying, “I had suspected as much.”

He shrugs. He doesn’t know what else to say, but she’s the first person he’s told _anything_ to, and the sense of relief he feels is entirely unexpected.

“So are you going to tell me you want to move to St. Petersburg?”

“No!” Of course that wasn’t his intention – not any time soon – but even the memory of having considered throwing himself on the mercies of Viktor Nikiforov is enough to make him feel a little guilty. “Well. Maybe one day. But not this year, or next.” He clears his throat. “I want to talk about my programmes. I know I’ve left it really late, but... I don’t want to do Winter and Spring.”

Kseniya is nodding. “I understand. You’ll still need a framework though.” Her smile is one that Otabek’s learned to be wary of. “Unless you actually want to call it ‘I’m in Love With Yuri Plisetsky’.”

However he’s feeling, his coach has always known how to make him crack a smile.

“I don’t think I need that kind of attention.”

“I don’t think you do either.” She leans back, stretching up until something pops. “So I’m not going to pry. But I’ll need you to bring me something we can use. I think I can give you another week to try out some ideas.”

Otabek has to bite back a noise of frustration – he knows it’s not Kseniya’s fault he’s in this position, but if it was anything like as easy as she’s making it sound, then he wouldn’t be. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since Yuri left, I’m not going to figure it out in a week.”

“So stop thinking about it and get in the studio. You know how to dance, Beka. Start there. And if, or when you decide you need to be in St. Petersburg? Make sure you tell me.” She reaches out and squeezes his shoulder, in a rare display of affection. “Now. Let’s get to work.”

 

* * *

 

He may not know what to say to Yuri in words, but he stood in this room with him so many times, it’s easy to see him there now: a figure in black with his hair pulled back, leaning back against the mirrors with his elbows on the barre, feet bare. He’s silent, watching Otabek as he starts to experiment with an ebb and flow of movement, like emotion threatening to break out and then reined back in, more ruthlessly each time.

He’s not his Yuri, Otabek realises too slowly, not yet. He’s the Yuri he’ll be in a few years or more, always quicksilver but a little calmer, more sober, more patient; and all the things Otabek hasn’t told him, doesn’t know _how_ to tell him yet, he already knows.

Kseniya was right, of course; and Otabek knows what he has to do.

 

* * *

 

> **Otabek:** _Would you mind if I went to St. Petersburg at some point?_
> 
> **Otabek:** _It depends on the assignments whether I can afford it anyway_
> 
> **Otabek:** _Maybe just for a couple of days_
> 
> **JJ:** _Oh man_
> 
> **JJ:** _I’ll think about it, okay?_
> 
> **JJ:** _Right now I really don’t know_

 

* * *

 

By Wednesday, he’s put together the bare bones of one programme – the free, he thinks, though it could still go either way – and he may still have no idea what to call it, but he knows what it _is._ He’s got a solid quad toe loop, Salchow and flip, and an admittedly shaky quad loop, and he knows in his bones that there could be a major gold medal for him this year.

It’s also two days until JJ leaves St. Petersburg.

 

> **Otabek:** _I’ve got something I want to show you tonight_
> 
> **Otabek:** _Only you_
> 
> **Otabek:** _Is that okay?_
> 
> **Yuri:** _Fuck why do you do this to me_
> 
> **Yuri:** _Now I’m gonna spend the rest of the afternoon thinking about what it is_
> 
> **Yuri:** _Is it your dick_

 

It’s not long after Otabek’s finished dinner when Yuri texts him again ordering him to get on Skype, which means he will only just have got home himself; Otabek takes a minute to pull back the coffee table and set his laptop up beside the kitchen sink, giving a clear view of the room, before he logs into Skype.

“Hey.” Yuri answers within seconds; he’s sat at his tiny dining table, demolishing a plate of what looks like vegetable curry. “So show me this thing you wanna show me.” He’s talking with his mouth full.

“Okay. So... this is what I’ve been working on this week.”

Without giving himself any time for nerves to kick in, Otabek takes a few paces back into the centre of the room, presses play on the CD remote, and shows him.

He holds his ending position for a full count of five, until his chest stops heaving and he’s psyched himself up just a little; but when he looks up Yuri’s in the middle of shovelling food into his mouth, and Otabek’s too far from the screen to gauge his reaction.

“The track still needs work,” he says, grabbing his hoodie from the arm of the couch and pulling it on over his tank. “So do some of the elements. I think Kseniya will have some tweaks to make. But – the core of it’s there.”

He picks up his laptop from the counter; on the screen, Yuri chews, swallows and says, “Yeah,” putting his fork down with a clatter. “It’s good. Really good.”

Otabek doesn’t quite know what he’d expected Yuri to say, or what he’d expected he would feel – but he does know that this isn’t it.

He sighs, dropping down onto the couch, and says, “It’s about you.”

Yuri freezes for just a moment – then makes an uninterpretable noise and puts his head in his hands.

“Okay.” Otabek decides he doesn’t know whether to be annoyed, disappointed or worried; he does know that he doesn’t want any of those emotions to come through in his voice, even if sometimes he wishes he were the one who acts entirely on instinct, and never mind seeing things from both sides. “You’re gonna have to help me here, cause I don’t know what you’re thinking.”

“Ugh. Fuck. I’m being selfish,” Yuri mutters into his hands – which is a better start than Otabek had expected.

“That’s okay, you can be selfish. Now talk to me.”

Otabek tries not to wish he were JJ, as a general rule, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. For all his social tone-deafness, one distinct advantage he has over Otabek is that when things get really serious, people open up to JJ in a way they almost never do to Otabek, and what’s more, he knows how to let them.

But he’s not JJ. He’s only himself, and all he can do is listen: so he gets comfy, has a drink of water, and waits.

It’s not long before Yuri drops his hands from his face, and looks warily up at the screen.

“It’s just – unfair. JJ’s had his theme for _weeks,_ and now you’ve got this. And I don’t have _anything_ and Yakov is yelling at me every day because I won’t let him call Lilia, and the Smug Marrieds keep trying to stick their noses in too, _fucking_ Viktor told me I should hire _him_ and – _ugh!_ ”

One thing sticks out: “Why won’t you let Yakov call Lilia?”

“I – fuck,” Yuri says again, yanking the tie out of his hair in a way that surely must hurt, until it falls about his shoulders. “Look. You’re skating about _me._ Both of you. And I tried to as well. So I started thinking, and then I started thinking about my parents. And I couldn’t stop. And I – _can’t_.”

He ends in almost a whisper, expression twisting in a way that Otabek really doesn’t like.

As carefully as he can, he asks, “Do you want to talk to me about your parents?”

The only thing he knows about Yuri’s parents is their absence. Though he doesn’t exactly follow skating gossip, he and Yuri have been competitors for a good few years now and he’s never heard them mentioned once, which is notable in itself.

Yuri grimaces. “No. I really don’t.” He looks away from the screen, taking a breath. “Maybe – one day, okay? But not now.”

“Okay.”

There’s a blonde blur across the screen as Potya jumps onto the table to investigate Yuri’s empty plate, and gets pushed off again just as quickly with a sweep of his arm.

Otabek wishes again that he knew what to say in situations like these.

“I don’t mind that you don’t want to skate about this, and neither will JJ. I hope you know that.”

“But I don’t want to skate some bullshit,” Yuri argues; Otabek wisely refrains from pointing out that Lilia Baranovskaya’s choreography has won Yuri multiple gold medals. “I just – I can’t. But I can’t come up with anything else either. So I’m just fucked.”

“No you’re not. You’re not fucked. You just need to approach it differently. Let me think for a moment.”

“Okay.”

Yuri falls obediently silent; in the street outside there’s a flurry of car horns followed by the sound of women speaking Kazakh, their laughter, the smell of exhaust fumes and roasting lamb. The embrace of the city, as alien to St. Petersburg as it would be to Africa.

It’s not a solution. But it’s a start.

“So you’re thinking about us,” Otabek tries, thinking aloud. “And how you’re feeling. And – what you fear?” Which is an especially touchy subject for Yuri; but it doesn’t take a professional to figure out that if Yuri lost his parents – in whatever way – then he might fear losing other people too. “And that’s not some place you want to go right now. So... scale it back. You spent three weeks with each of us, you could skate that. No past stuff, no future stuff. Just that.”

“Hah.” Yuri’s tone says, _you may be onto something._ “But no sappy shit.”

“No sappy shit,” Otabek agrees. “So if I was going to choreograph your programmes, I’d start with the cities themselves. You’d never been to Almaty before. What was it like discovering my hometown? And what was it like being a tourist in St. Petersburg?”

Yuri pulls a face, the same one he’s pulled every time they’ve talked about taking JJ to see the sights. “Sure, I’ll do a whole programme with a fucking maple leaf baseball cap on my head. Backwards.”

Otabek snorts. “You know what they say. We have to suffer for our art.”

“What the hell do I call it though?”

Otabek shrugs. “Three weeks in Almaty, three weeks in St. Petersburg? It doesn’t matter, not yet anyway. As long as you know what it’s going to be.”

Yuri nods. “Yeah. Thanks, Beka.”

“I should start charging for my services,” Otabek jokes, and smiles when Yuri rolls his eyes.

“So, that. What do you call it?”

“I don’t. I didn’t know what I was doing either until a couple of days ago. So – I told Kseniya that we’re dating.”

More or less, anyway; there are opportune moments to tell Yuri Plisetsky how you truly feel about him, and one thing Otabek knows in his bones is that he’s content to wait for one of them.

“Yeah?” Yuri’s expression has turned distinctly wary. “What did she say?”

“She told me that I knew how to dance, and I should stop thinking about what to call it and get in the studio. She was right, of course.”

Yuri considers this for a few moments, and then says, “You realise she’s really fit, right?”

Otabek nearly chokes on a mouthful of water.

He wonders if Yuri deliberately timed that comment for while he was drinking, and then realises that Yuri is grinning and he already knows the answer.

He sighs. “Yuri. She’s been my coach for _eight years._ ”

Yuri rolls his eyes. “The fuck’s that got to do with anything? Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it.”

“For me, that’s got a lot to do with it. And – I can see she’s attractive, but no. I really haven’t.”

Yuri scoffs. “Weird.” Then a shadow seems to pass over his expression. “So JJ’s leaving Friday morning.”

Otabek nods. “I know.”

Yuri isn’t looking at him any more, picking instead at a loose piece of thread on the cuff of his new Canadiens hoodie. “It’s gonna suck.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

“...I dunno what to say about it.”

“The assignments will be out in the next two weeks,” Otabek reminds him, trying to be as reassuring as he can. “And then we’ll figure out when we both get to see you next. And until then, we’ll just take it one day at a time. And keep talking to each other.”

Yuri’s smile is back, even though Otabek can tell he’s making an effort for his sake. “Yeah. Okay.”

 

* * *

 

> **Yuri:** _He's gone_
> 
> **Yuri:** _He fucking cried on me seriously_
> 
> **Yuri:** _This fucking sucks, why does it have to suck so much_
> 
> **Otabek:** _Yeah. It really does_
> 
> **Otabek:** _We've just got to keep skating. It's all we can do_
> 
> **Otabek:** _I think I know what I'm gonna call my programmes btw_
> 
> **Otabek:** _A Letter, In Two Parts_
> 
> **Yuri:** _????_
> 
> **Otabek:** _Half to JJ, half to you_
> 
> **Otabek:** _I don’t think I can make sense of it in words but_
> 
> **Otabek:** _I know you’ll understand_

 

As hard, fraught and yes, even lonely as it is sometimes, Otabek thinks he’s pretty lucky.

If they can keep it together then this will be their year, all three of them, and he can’t wait to see what they both come up with.

Smile curling at one corner of his mouth, he puts his phone down on the bench behind him, gets to his feet, and steps out onto the ice.

**Author's Note:**

> 1 [_More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory_](https://www.morethantwo.com/more-than-two-polyamory-book) by Franklin Veaux and Eve Richert (IPG/AK Press, 2014).
> 
> 2 A cheese similar to cottage cheese or quark, common in the Middle East and Central Asia. ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashk))


End file.
